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Small Idaho ISP 'Punishes' Twitter And Facebook's 'Censorship'...By Blocking Access To Them Entirely
A small Idaho ISP by the name of Your T1 WIFI has decided to punish Twitter and Facebook for perceived "censorship"...by censoring them. In an email to subscribers posted to Twitter, the company claims it will be blocking customer access to both websites by default moving forward. To access the websites, users apparently will need to contact the company to be added to a whitelist
A North Idaho internet provider sent this email out to costumers[sic], absolutely INSANE pic.twitter.com/ecwRFqnzwS
— Coping MAGA (@CopingMAGA) January 11, 2021
While the company doesn't specify what "censorship" its customers are complaining about, the complaints were likely driven by Twitter's decision to ban Trump after he violated the company's terms of services[sic] by inciting a fatal insurrection. Or perhaps they're complaining about the steady purging of QAnon conspiracy theorists for espousing bogus claims of election fraud. Either way, the ISP claims to ingeniously be combating what they claim is censorship...by embracing the exact same thing:
"Our company does not believe a website or social networking site has the authority to censor what you see and post and hide information from you, stop you from seeing what your friends and family are posting," the email states. "This is why with the amount of concerns, we have made this decision to block these two websites from being accessed from our network."
I'm sure the irony is totally lost on them.
I reached out to contact Your T1 WIFI, but their 1-888 number resolved to a woman's voicemail box that didn't even mention the name of the company. However, company owner Brett Fink spoke to a local CBS affiliate and contradicted his own company's email by claiming they weren't blocking anybody:
"In a phone call with KREM, the owner of the company, Brett Fink, again said the websites would only be blocked for customers who asked.
"We've had customers asked to be blocked by it. That is what the email was about, so no we are not blocking anybody, only the ones that have asked for it," Fink said."
I wonder if Starlink works in Idaho?
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 12 2021, @11:10PM (10 children)
The Eagles would say, "You can unsubscribe any time you like, but you can never refund"
Actually, I think it's a little awesome. David and Goliath awesome. We just need to wait, to see if David really has God's blessing!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday January 12 2021, @11:56PM (9 children)
(oh, the idiocy of hoping Bible is relevant to reality)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 13 2021, @12:14AM (2 children)
Did ya notice I put the Eagles ahead of the Bible? No? Oh well.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 13 2021, @12:28AM
Yes, I see two parts of your comment that seem unrelated one to the other except for you pretending that you think (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 13 2021, @01:10AM
Didn't notice since they're usually behind.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Arik on Wednesday January 13 2021, @12:37AM (1 child)
Even if for no other reason than that so man of the homicidal maniacs running or influencing our governments believe it's relevant.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 13 2021, @03:20AM
Nitpicking: the issue has been forced as relevant, yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday January 13 2021, @04:41PM (3 children)
You know, a whole lot of this stuff actually makes some sense if you remove the metaphysics and stop thinking of God as a literal sky fairy.
Imagine God as something closer to the Invisible Hand: not a real physical thing, but a thought experiment. A logical construct to help us understand forces currently beyond our understanding. A personification of the ethereal connections between people, of the power that some ideas hold over others.
In this case, it's meaningful to ask: is this underdog a David, favored by God to defeat Goliath? Or is this underdog a Sodom, condemned to destruction by its own hubris?
Of course, if we were in a more typical forum, this thread would be flooded with idiots trying to figure out who followed more commandments. That would miss the point completely. If that's what happened, it would 100% be "the idiocy of hoping the Bible is relevant to reality".
But just because there are idiots out there ready to take every religious statement as an opportunity to munchkin themselves into heaven, doesn't mean every religious statement is actually that idiotic. One remembers Oppenheimer famously quoting the Bhagavad Gita: "Then he took on this multi-armed formed and said, Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds."
He meant, we are like gods now, trying to control mortals through fear, and we must take that responsibility seriously. Hindu scripture provides many examples of powerful beings interacting with lesser beings through avatars, and we can all see the truth in those stories through our own life experience. Then we can learn, as we learn through any stories, where the story might be headed once we get beyond our own experience.
There are three kinds of stories in this world. One kind merely entertains. One kind documents our history. The last kind explores the forces beyond our comprehension. There is educational value to this last kind of story, and it would be illogical to completely discard such stories when we are still incapable of comprehending all of the forces at work.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 13 2021, @11:42PM (2 children)
Look, I know the generative ability of the imagination (in whatever form) and its value in exploring the future outcomes of one action.
1. as long as one keeps in mind those are just mental constructs and appreciate their probability of happening (as opposed to believing in miracles), everything is fine and dandy
2. another value of stories (by them true or not) - they can introduce shortcuts in communication - like "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra".
What irked me in
While the reference to the story makes a communication that is terse but still rich in details (thumbs up for point 2), the "awesome" indicates unwarranted hope (thumbs down for point 1).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Thursday January 14 2021, @04:20AM (1 child)
The reference also gives you a way to hoist Runaway by his own petard. If this ISP is forced to stop censoring things that don't conform to their narrow ideology (which is increasingly divorced from any claim of "tradition")...when that happens, you can say, it turns out God does not favor this. God is not, in fact, with Trump the serial philanderer, the prideful bacchanalian, the careless blasphemer, the economic dominatrix.
If you're observant, you can spot these openings in legalistic religious arguments. It turns out there's a lot of beautiful religious language for shit talking the self-righteous. Actually, shit talking the self-righteous is a surprisingly large portion of scripture. It's kind of the point, I think.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 14 2021, @04:40AM
With the risk of being called a weirdo for it, I prefer car analogies to the one based on Bible.
As for hoisting Runaway? Nah, he does it himself way better than I can do within the limits of my time that I can afford to waste on him. (grin)
But then again... God works in mysterious way.
See? One reason for which I prefer car analogies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford